In June 2023, Émilie Baulon and Florent Bartolucci opened a tea room-boutique on Mont-Royal Avenue entirely dedicated to madeleines. Their product is available, their concept is gradually developing and their ambitions are only growing. Both partners dream of expanding while maintaining their authenticity.
As soon as she joined the Lyfe Institute (formerly the Paul Bocuse Institute) ten years ago, Émilie already had in mind to create a concept with this little shell-shaped cake. “The madeleine is quite poetic, I find, it is linked to the feeling of well-being, of happiness”, she says, making particular reference to Proust’s madeleine.
A formative experience
After several experiences in Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and France, in the pastry sector for Émilie and in the hotel and catering sector for Florent, they arrived in Montreal with the idea of setting up a business. From the first months, they follow training at the entrepreneurs’ school. First, they launched a range of brioche that they only sold in markets. Their permanent residence in hand, they then decided to create their single-product store, this time with madeleines. “Brioches are a somewhat difficult product to work with, they require a lot of growing time and we got up very early, they remember. It was quite physically demanding. »
This first experience is still educational, it allows them to get a foothold in entrepreneurship and to realize the cost and profitability of such a project. “It made me think a lot about the recipes too, which I adapted so that the cost was lower,” confides Émilie.
Opening a single-product store can be risky, and the choice of product has a certain weight in the success of this type of business. Making madeleines, unlike brioches, did not require specialized equipment that would have had to be imported from Europe, which would have been very expensive. It is also an easy and quick product to make which does not require a large space for preparation. “If necessary, we can remake the dough quite quickly, in just ten minutes they are cooked”explains Florent.
The dream of a storefront
Despite the challenges it represents, having a store was obvious to them. They fell in love with this space located on Mont-Royal Avenue, near Jeanne Mance Park: the rent is not very high for the location and there is almost no work to be done. “It’s the rent that determines profitability,” explains Émilie. They based their business plan on this condition, and their project was profitable from the first month.
The two owners add that for such a concept to work, there is no room for error. The basic product must please from the start. “It took me six months to develop the right recipe at home, and then I tested it in the store’s oven,” she remembers.
She still adds that with such a concept, you have to constantly reinvent yourself.
There are many variations of the madeleine in their store. © Émilie Baulon and Florent Bartolucci
Beyond the single product
Madeleines with salted butter caramel, lemon meringue, with a raspberry-verbena center for Mother’s Day and even savory options: it’s a real pastry chef’s job that Émilie does every day, creating her own recipes as desired. his inspirations. “Our concept goes beyond the single product: the creams, the salted butter caramels are homemade, underlines Florent. There are all the elements of pastry that we find in the variations of our madeleines. » You can even find large-format madeleines in their range, to order, with, for example, a vanilla and fresh strawberry version with crispy biscuit, inspired by strawberries.
They financed this project entirely with their personal and family money. And for this, Émilie confides that they made a certain number of sacrifices. “We didn’t go away for the weekend because starting a business required an investment and we couldn’t do everythingshe remembers. Mentally, you have to be ready, it’s a lot of hours of work. »
For the future, the two partners would like to open a second store in Montreal, and why not create a franchise, while keeping the authenticity of their concept. “If we dream very far away, admits Émilie, we would like to open a store in New York one day. »
